


Not How the Force Works

by Lumielles



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Angst, F/M, Force Bond, Force dreams, OC spawn mention, Theron's still being an idiot, post-copero, sharing dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-29 04:31:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13919433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lumielles/pseuds/Lumielles
Summary: Prompt from my tumblr.  Theron and Aramys find themselves in a shared force-dream, and neither of them wants to be there.  But it gives them a chance to say things that have gone unsaid since his betrayal.  Post-Copero, Pre-Nathema Update.





	Not How the Force Works

**Author's Note:**

> This is written under the assumption that Theron doesn't completely lack a connection to the force, and because of their intimate bond, Aramys' ability boosts his signal. It's a silly concept, and I know that's 'not how the force works', which is why I titled it so. Just trying new things. Reminder, Aramys had the baby several weeks before the Nathema update coming out in April. So she's about two-weeks postpartum here.

            The heels of his boots clacked against the polished black floor.  The antechamber to this place was massive.  Despite the fact that he’d never been here in his life, Theron knew he was deep inside the Sith Citadel on Dromund Kaas.  He could hear the torrential rain hitting the outside of the building and the distant rumble of thunder.  These chambers belonged to her, during her tenure on the Dark Council.  All those years ago.

            He didn’t understand why he was here now.  Or how it could be perfectly decorated for her without him ever stepping foot near this place.  Jewel-toned tapestries hung on the walls in the place of the expected Imperial banners.    

            Thunder clapped overhead with such force, it shook the floor beneath his feet.  But the figure, kneeling at the center of the room, sat unmoving, her shoulders rising and falling with deep calming breaths. 

            She was meditating, he realized with renewed puzzlement.  Why would he be dreaming about her meditating.  It wasn’t unusual for him to dream about her these days, but this was a bit too out of the ordinary.  Her eyes remained closed as he approached her.  The closer he got, the easier it was to tell that she knew he was there and was doing her best to ignore him.

            Normally it wouldn’t have bothered him, she did this whenever she was mad at him.  Refusing to speak to him for a bit before finding him and sharing absolutely everything in a flurry of apologies and embraces.  But this was his dream, and he wasn’t going to let her ignore him when he was in complete control.  This was the only time he got to spend with her these days anyway.  Might as well enjoy it.

            “You know, everything was going pretty good for me until you showed up.” She said, eyes still shut.

            “I could say the same thing,” Theron said.  “What are you doing?”

            “Meditating, or trying to,” Aramys sighed, opening one eye to peek at him quickly.

            “Some happy place you’ve got,” Theron frowned, not even trying to stop his judgmental scowl as he looked around the chamber.  Hooded statues stood over them, glaring down with soulless stone eyes.  They put Theron on edge, and he wondered how the hell she could ever relax in a place like this.

            “It’s familiar… It’s… mine,” Aramys said, her despondent tone telling Theron more than her words could have.  It was the last place she felt happy that he hadn’t touched, where he wasn’t some ghost that lurked in the shadows of her memory. 

            “Maybe if you close your eyes tight enough, I’ll disappear,” Theron said, more venom in his tone than he intended.

            “What are you doing here anyway?” Aramys’ eyes shot open, nostrils flaring as she scowled up at him.  Lower lip protruding as it always did.

            “ _Me_?  What are _you_ doing here?  Last I checked this was my dream.”

            “Leave me alone,” she said, closing her eyes again.

           

            Theron growled, hunching his shoulders as he walked past her.  At least he could explore the place if his mind was so insistent on keeping him here.

            As he passed, Aramys felt him through the force.  He didn’t feel like the specter of a memory, a fleeting vision of the man who constantly clouded her thoughts.  She could feel him beside her, actually beside her.  She reached out, opening her eyes as her hand grabbed his.  He was warm and solid, he didn’t disappear at the touch of her reaching fingers.   Every time she would reach out to him in a vision, he’d dissolve into the air.  With fingers curled in his, she realized this wasn’t just a vision.

            “You’re actually here,” she said under her breath as she stood, keeping a firm grasp on his hand.

            “What?”

            “You have to tell me what’s going on—“

            “What are you talking about?”

            “How are you here?”

            “Are you—Is this actually—“

            “Yes.”

            “How—“

            “I don’t know.”

            “The force isn’t— “

            “Theron, shut up!” Aramys shouted, her voice echoed through the chamber as Theron’s rambling came to an abrupt halt.

            All the strange things that had been happening to him since he left the Alliance, since he left her, this one took the cake.  The cherry on top of the ice cream sundae of weird.  The random tears streaming down his face for no discernable reason, the flashes he’d see when he tried to drift off to sleep, that day two weeks ago when he was haunted by the distant sound of her screaming in agony.  Now he was just supposed to accept he was sharing a dream with her? 

            “You didn’t deserve me,” Aramys said, straightening her shoulders. 

            “What?” Theron broke himself from his thoughts.

            “And I didn’t deserve what you did to me,” she pressed on, ignoring him.  “But you have to tell me what’s going on,”

            “I already told you, when I tried to kill you--”

            “If you really wanted to kill me you would’ve done it,” Aramys said with a smirk that vanished before Theron barely had time to acknowledge it.

            Admitting she was right wasn’t something he wanted to do.  The thought of killing her, even hypothetically—He’d been having too many nightmares like that lately.   If this was real, and they were in a place that was entirely their own, he could confess everything to her now and not worry about being overheard.   Any excuse he gave her now would be thinly veiled.  He didn’t have the strength to keep lying to her, not that she would have believed him.  All the years he had spent doing jobs like this, charming his way through situations, sometimes with the finesse of a rancor on hallucinogens; she never fell for it.  Ever.  No one in the galaxy could read him like she could.  Now was no different.

            “Hey, wait a minute,” Theron looked down at her abdomen, noticing an obvious lack of pregnancy.  A small bump sat at her navel, not anywhere close to the one he’d seen in a holo a few weeks ago.  “You’re not pregnant…  Because of the—” he motioned around them with his finger.

            “I gave birth two weeks ago,” Aramys said, frustrated at how easy it was to fall back into a casual tone with him.  As if she wasn’t just yelling at him.

            “You—You did?” he said, voice higher than usual, almost trembling.  She watched him through furrowed brows, finding his expression difficult to translate.  Shock, worry, perhaps guilt.  Maybe all three.

            “How is it?” he asked, clearing his throat.

            “ _She’s_ fine,” Aramys sighed.

            “Right, a girl... You said that in your letter.”

            “You read my letter?” Aramys asked, unable to figure out if she felt anger or if she was touched by the fact that her letter hadn’t gone unread.  It’d been months ago, and she barely remembered what she had written. 

            “I did,” Theron nodded once, “Did you really throw all my stuff into the canyon?”

            “Just your clothes.”

            Theron nodded again, he couldn’t exactly blame her.  He had broken up with her in the worst way possible, by pretending to try and kill her.  Nervous, he began to chew on his lower lip as he glanced around the room.  

            “How do I get this to stop?” Theron asked.  Nothing like being forced to confront the woman you love after you ripped her heart out and stomped on it in some kind of incorporeal setting.  It was times like this when he was convinced his entire existence was just some kind of cruel cosmic joke.

            “I wish I knew,” Aramys said under her breath, “It’d be great if you’d stop haunting me, so I can move on with my life.”

            Silence hung between them as Aramys looked away.  It was clear to him she regretted her words the moment she spoke them.  As she looked down at her feet, her hair fell over her face.  Slivers of gray hair reflected the harsh lighting overhead, ones that he hadn’t seen before.  Not that he was one to talk, the gray at his temples increased every time he saw his reflection.  Until he shaved that part off.

            “Is that what you want?” he asked, holding himself at the ready.  He didn’t want to know the answer, but he wanted to try and be prepared for what he expected her to say.  Even if he needed her to say something else.

            Aramys looked back at him, staring at him with dark eyes.  Letting him go was the last thing she wanted.  Moving on, while having been on her mind as of late, seemed impossible.  She would pursue him to the edges of the unknown if she could.  She loved him, so intimately that he was a permanent part of her soul, of her very being. 

            It was why she knew she should tell him yes, that it was what she wanted.  Their daughter deserved more than a lost mother who pinned for the man who abandoned them.  Aramys often caught her own mother staring out the windows, mindlessly stirring a cup of caf for so long it had gone cold. 

            And while Commander of the Eternal Alliance was a title she was growing weary of, she knew she also had a responsibility to the people she led.  Her leadership may come into question if she welcomed a traitor back with open arms. Would she ever really be able to trust Theron again if he returned or would the two of them destroy any remnant of the relationship they had by trying to ignore his transgressions.  Things would never be normal again, no matter how much they tried to force it.

            But why couldn’t she be selfish just this once.  Why did she have to put the needs of the Alliance before her own once again?  There was nothing she wanted more than to take him into her arms and kiss him, tangling her hands in the adolescent looking mohawk he’d given himself.  She asked herself a question she had asked her father countless times as a child.  Why didn’t she deserve to be happy too.  The context was different, but it still applied. 

            Theron’s jaw worked as he waited for her answer.  The longer she stayed silent, the more anxious he grew.  His entire body itched, like tiny teeth dragging along his skin.  Each passing second more agonizing than the last.

            “No,” Aramys answered.  There was no way she would have been able to lie to him and hold herself together.  He would have seen right through her.

            “Okay,” Theron said, all emotion draining from his expression.  Like he was shutting himself off.  Aramys was familiar with it, he’d done it to her before.  It was how he left their arguments.

            “Come back Theron, she said.  “We can finish how we started--together.”

            Reaching up, she brushed her fingers against his hairline.  Theron leaned into her touch until her hand cupped his cheek.  It took everything he had not to press a kiss into her palm.

            It was clear from the way his brows knitted and his hazel eyes flicked around the room that he was going to turn her down again.  She wasn’t going to accept his excuses this time, she needed a straight answer.

            “Don’t tell me you ‘can’t’,” she quoted him.  That day on Umbara where he said he loved her as he turned and walked away.

            “Then I won’t.” A sad smile pulled at the corner of his mouth as he took two steps away from her.

            “Theron,” Aramys mumbled as she tried to close the gap now between them.

            Danna began to cry in the distance, a far-off echo that came at them from all directions.  Aramys felt her focus begin to wane, her daughter’s wails were pulling her out of the meditation.

            “I think our girl’s awake,” Theron said as Aramys felt herself get ripped away.

 


End file.
